MacPhail: "We've taken a giant step backwards."

[VeveJones007]

And that makes that trade worse in absolutely no possible way.

That trade is still an amazing trade, and any opinion otherwise is just hindsight. We got a phenomenal amount of talent in return for a guy who pitched 160 innings over the next two years.

It sucks that Jones has taken a step back from where he started last year, but that trade still is an amazing trade. Tillman is still a fantastic prospect with a huge future. Bell still has a lot of upside. Sherrill helped us out over the last two years almost as much as Bedard helped the M's.

And stating that we "know" MacPhail isn't good at signing free agents is pretty flimsy logic, IMO. We don't know that. He hasn't done it yet here, but we also haven't been in a position where we should be overpaying for guys, which is the only way you can bring in premium FAs. When we get there, and I think we will be there next offseason, then he'll prove if he can do it or not. Not overpaying for guys when we don't need to doesn't prove that he won't when we do. If we don't go hard after any of the good options this upcoming offseason, then that point will have a lot more basis, but right now it is certainly very premature to conclude he's incapable, or "not good", at signing free agents.

Absolutely right on the trade. I would also add that the M's have had two of the best players in baseball on their team since that trade (Ichiro and King Felix). Plus, they play in the AL West. Stating that the trade wasn't good because the M's are contending again is illogical due to the confounding variables.

[RenegadeOsFan]

Once again, great points. Let's see what the MacPhail brigade comes up with now.

MSK

Not sure who is in this "MacPhail Brigade" you speak of, and I don't consider myself to be in there...but in response to BrunoCherryTown's last post...he is comparing a Football Owner and a Basketball Owner to a Baseball Owner. Last time I checked, the finances in the three respected sports are completely different.

True, the concept of a profit and a loss is the same, but there are a lot more factors to that than meets the eye...and knowing is half the battle.

[VeveJones007]

I'm not ready to throw out what I thought of these young players after one month of the season. Things are going to click for these guys sometime this season.

[Hank Scorpio]

Let's not miss the bowl while urinating, here.

The way MacPhail has gone about stripping this thing down to youth has been textbook. TEXTBOOK. And it was and is the only reasonable way for us to sustain competence in this division.

Period.

Just because he's not pissing money away on peaking veterans does not mean he has failed. This team's core cannot be bought via free agency. It absolutely cannot, and that has been proven 2 or 3 times over the last decade.

But you CAN spend money to complement what you've got, and now is the time to do that. One could argue that this offseason wouldn't have been too early, frankly.

[NewMarketSean]

Let's not miss the bowl while urinating, here.

The way MacPhail has gone about stripping this thing down to youth has been textbook. TEXTBOOK. And it was and is the only reasonable way for us to sustain competence in this division.

Period.

Just because he's not pissing money away on peaking veterans does not mean he has failed. This team's core cannot be bought via free agency. It absolutely cannot, and that has been proven 2 or 3 times over the last decade.

But you CAN spend money to complement what you've got, and now is the time to do that. One could argue that this offseason wouldn't have been too early, frankly.

No one, aside from maybe 1 poster here, is saying we should do this. I've said that if you feel you have a core in place, and AM felt that way last year, then you should add as much talent as you can to it to help it along.

Tejada, Atkins and Gonzalez are not what I was talking about either.

[Hank Scorpio]

No one, aside from maybe 1 poster here, is saying we should do this. I've said that if you feel you have a core in place, and AM felt that way last year, then you should add as much talent as you can to it to help it along.

Tejada, Atkins and Gonzalez are not what I was talking about either.

We agree. I have seen the light.

Who were you talking about? Holliday for 7 years, $120MM?

[MemorialStadKid]

No one, aside from maybe 1 poster here, is saying we should do this. I've said that if you feel you have a core in place, and AM felt that way last year, then you should add as much talent as you can to it to help it along.

Tejada, Atkins and Gonzalez are not what I was talking about either.

Not sure who said we should throw money away on peaking veterans, but this is the point many are making.

MSK

[JTrea81]

But you CAN spend money to complement what you've got, and now is the time to do that. One could argue that this offseason wouldn't have been too early, frankly.

And one has been...

[NewMarketSean]

We agree. I have seen the light.

Who were you talking about? Holliday for 7 years, $120MM?

Figgins signed a decent deal. He could play a good 3B for the next 3 years.

Nick Johnson could play 1B/DH as a stop gap -- and could still have a higher OBP than Atkins even if Atkins hit .300.

Going back to last year, we completely ignored Adam Dunn. Horrible in the field, I know...but wouldn't you trade that for some offense right about now?

All those players would have drastically improved the O's offense and none of them would have crippled the Orioles financially.

[Peace21]

I think it all boils down to Brian Roberts being out of the lineup and infield. When he came to camp with the back injury it was an instant letdown.

[DeanMW]

Figgins signed a decent deal. He could play a good 3B for the next 3 years.

All those players would have drastically improved the O's offense and none of them would have crippled the Orioles financially.

Last 3 years  	Team 	G 	AB 	R 	H 	2B 	3B 	HR 	RBI 	BB 	K 	SB 	CS 	AVG 	OBP 	SLG 	OPS  	2010 	        SEA 	22 	75 	11 	15 	4 	1 	0 	7 	17 	23 	5 	2 	.200 	.337 	.280 	.617

I don't think he would be much of a help. I anticipate most of that nice deal will be a horrid waste of money. Furthermore, if he had signed with the O's for that same deal, I think the OH would be having threads about him that make the current AJ ones mere child's play.

[Going Underground]

Figgins signed a decent deal. He could play a good 3B for the next 3 years.

Nick Johnson could play 1B/DH as a stop gap -- and could still have a higher OBP than Atkins even if Atkins hit .300.

Going back to last year, we completely ignored Adam Dunn. Horrible in the field, I know...but wouldn't you trade that for some offense right about now?

All those players would have drastically improved the O's offense and none of them would have crippled the Orioles financially.

Beltre and Figgins did not want to come here. Atkins did so we ended up with him. MacPhail then tried to sell him to the fans. "We watched him last year and we think we can straighten him out". Andy should run for office.

[BrunoCherrytown]

First off, I do like reading most of the posts that you make. A lot are very interesting and informative. However, none of this post responded to the actual points I made in my post and I don't know where you got most of the points you claim I made in my original post.

Secondly, I never offered "what factors" we should use. The reason I responded the way I did to your post is because you keep posting and complaining about how we don't spend money like we should and blah blah blah, but the data you used to support your argument is simply conjecture.

You are assuming that because the Orioles have a far reach in their media market that they can spend more. Well, a point in the contrary is that having a TV network that reaches across the entire country doesn't mean jack if no one watches it.

You state you have to "spend to realize potential." Huh? You again are assuming here that spending will result in potential which means more people watching. I think you are talking about spending as in payroll here. How will having a higher payroll mean that the more people will watch TV?? Because we will have bigger name players?? Because we will win more games?? Again, all of this is speculation and assumption.

Going on you then state in the post I am quoting, "Redskins seem to have a nice franchise value compared to other football teams. I believe they are #2 behind the Cowboys." I am not trying to be rude, but I have not clue as to what point you are trying to make here with relation to the football, the Ravens, and other teams to the situation the Orioles are in.

"So by your logic we have the potential for "bandwagon" fans in football but none in baseball even though serious teams do?" What??? I am not sure where you are getting this from, but I did not make any kind of statement that would correlate into this sort of statement. You pulled out Stretch-Armstrong for this one from what I wrote. But I think what you are saying is that winning breeds more fans, and that is true, yes I agree, I agree 110%. However, I never stated in my post anything along these lines.

In response to your question of why we cannot spend more, well I am not sure why we cannot spend more and I am not going to someone who just throws out guessing, ideas, and random facts that can be used to show that we should be spending more. What I do know for a fact, is that attendance has crashed and the Orioles seem hesitant to spend the kind of money a franchise such as the NYY or Red Sox are willing to throw out there.

"You saying fans discretionary spending habits are just massively different here than say in NY or Boston?" I was not saying anything like this. I was just saying that you can't simply use the fact that Maryland is the richest state to justify why the Orioles should spend more because there are fans who live outside of the state, such as yourself, and there are a lot of people in the state that aren't fans or are fans who don't want to spend money on the team.

Your original post stated that because Maryland is the richest state, then the Orioles should spend more. I was simply asking you to stop using that course of reasoning because it had no direct correlation to how the Orioles spend their money, it is pure conjecture.

Sorry if i came off as abrasive. Didn't mean to really put you on the spot. Not my intent.

I'm just fed up with the unfortunate mentality that we are a small-mid market team. When you can make a statistical case that we are not.

So my point is our actual market size could be vastly bigger if we are a better team. And that in my opinion means upping our budgets drastically in free agents and international free agents. Not just relying on a couple of trades and drafts.

We don't have to have this slow bubbling rebuild. Instead of making serious strides each year. We aren't making serious strides each year. I wish we were. But we aren't. I love this "sustained competitiveness" mission. I think it's great. But that doesn't mean you can't be more competitive while building that foundation.

I am a big fan of our drafting. Even Hobgood. I look at bloated and disgusting CC Sabathia on the mound lighting it up and I see Hobgood could be our hopefully more in shape version of him.

I love Matusz and Wieters.

But i don't think anyone would argue the draft is the cheapest way to build a team. I'm not saying we COULDN'T go cheaper than we have, because we have indeed been spending good money in this area.

But even overslot picks don't even compare to going out and RISKING money on international prospects and legit free agents. Miguel Sano could be the next Hanley Ramirez or never see the light of day. I would've liked to have seen the Orioles find that out. But that required risk. We don't like that word which is why I keep seeing Glenn Davis and Albert Belle brought up in here.

I'm surprised the Ghost of Carl Pavano didn't shatter the Yankees hopes and dreams for the future. I know the OH comeback to that one so don't worry.

But to my original point - if somebody says we can't spend like the Red Sox. I will use those statistics, because the numbers say we can.

The owners and GM say we can't. That's a personal spending decision by the decision makers - market data does not reflect that - once again in my opinion.

So I simply respectfully disagree with your opinion. As it looks like you do mine.

[Dipper9]

Figgins signed a decent deal. He could play a good 3B for the next 3 years.

Nick Johnson could play 1B/DH as a stop gap -- and could still have a higher OBP than Atkins even if Atkins hit .300.

Going back to last year, we completely ignored Adam Dunn. Horrible in the field, I know...but wouldn't you trade that for some offense right about now?

All those players would have drastically improved the O's offense and none of them would have crippled the Orioles financially.

Johnson is hitting below .150.

We did not totally ignore Dunn. MacPhail investigated whether Dunn would DH, to which Dunn had no interest. At that point, pretty much EVERY team in the AL dropped out of the Dunn hunt.

[JTrea81]

Beltre and Figgins did not want to come here. Atkins did so we ended up with him. MacPhail then tried to sell him to the fans. "We watched him last year and we think we can straighten him out". Andy should run for office.

The guy certainly snowballed a ton of people. I'm glad to see more people are finally not buying what he is selling.

He'd be a good spokesperson for the CIA. Best of both worlds there...